compiled by Paul B.Wiener
A. Searching vs. Information: What is authority? Factual statement vs. “scientific” research. Opinion vs. “informed opinion” Sciences vs. humanities.
Culture of questions, answers, info, fact, opinion, search (religion).
Meditation on the interplay of scholarship, authority, information, fact and serendipity. Searching Google for images, practical information, phrases, numbers, names, dates, text strings, lyrics, abbreviations, foreign words, meta (hidden) data.
Google reinforces search process; databases emphasize content
and citation; looking vs. finding.
B. Thinking Google. As Research/Information Tool.
-founders: Larry Page & Sergey Brin at Stanford Univ; page rank=algorithm that measures a search value by the relevance of links to other links; pagerank as authority.
-Google formed in 1997, after 2 years’ experimenting – took off in 1999
-Wikipedia entry on Google
-Google Tools & Services (Wikipedia)
(Fun: Pigeonrank)
-Google’s success helped create the idea of a world connected by information
-Library databases depend for information on authority, text and scholarship,
Indexing, peer-reviewed publication, fees
- Web search relies on keywords, synonyms, display, numbers, text strings, mapping, calculation, self-publication, meta-text
The Most Basic Basics (from Google Librarian)
Punctuation doesn’t count. So don’t worry about it. (Punctuation referring to . , ! and the like. Does not include - or ' or “)
Keywords aren’t case sensitive. Google considers uppercase and lowercase letters to be equal.
You are limited to ten (10) words. Everything after ten words is truncated and ignored.
Avoid misspellings. However, Google will show you the correct spelling and offer you the opportunity to do a search with the correct spelling.
Singular and plural forms are considered different keywords to Google. If the singular form doesn’t yield results , try the plural form
Google ignores most common, short words like the, and, or, after in,, how, I, it, is was, will be, and so on. Don’t waste the 10-word limit! Google will notify you at the top of your search results if they have ignored some of your search terms. (Google will only recognize AND and OR when capitalized and used as an operator.)
Google finds results anywhere in a document, not just in its text (eg- the HTML of a page).
Word order matters to Google. The first word is the most important word, and so on.
Some typical keyword-driven questions that don’t suggest library database retrieval:
“Use of Beer by female prisoners in New York State”
“Who Composed the Music for the ‘Godfather?’”
“How many chemicals elements are named for people?
“When did ping pong become an Olympic sport?”
“What was the worst hurricane that ever hit Long Island?”
I need this article by Clifford Geertz: “Cerebral savages…..”
Compare “Slaughterhouse-Five” to “The Things They Carried”
1. Find a scholarly article on a (leased) database by title: In Science Direct: Prevalence of vaccine-derived polioviruses in sewage and river water in South Africa… , (Water Research, Sept., 2005)
Google will also find short text strings in various references! (may list local holdings)
…Ribonucleic acid (RNA) was extracted from infected cell culture fluid by means of a commercial RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) according to the manufacturer's instructions. The RNase-Free DNase kit (Qiagen) provided efficient on-column digestion of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) during RNA purification from cells. A reverse transcription multiplex PCR (RT-multiplex PCR) as described by Egger et al. (1995) was used for the rapid detection of PVs and (So. African DSpace, but not in Google Scholar)
2. (searching Google for scholarly article, or text on (maya nahua literature) NAHUA IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICA: Evidence from Maya inscriptions (Google locates article in SBU resource, by title or text string)
…spoken today in the Valley of Mexico but was once also widely
interaction and population movement. The language of
the Mexica, however, was only one of a number of related languages
and dialects collectively termed Nahua.We use Nahuatl to
refer to the language of the Aztecs and those contemporary dialects…
C. Applying Google
1.Using Google to search for text: Remember The Ten Word Limit.
Also: Phrases, Abbreviations, Titles, Numbers, Authors, Quotations
a. Finding papers, etc. that are not “legally” on the web (educational departmental sites, blogs, webrings, usenet, personal pages, societies, etc.)
Major Google Operators, shortcuts, functions and commands:
-site:edu (org,gov) or site:edu/library edu/English, gov cancer
-define: (no space, word, short phrase, acronym, etc)
-filetype:ppt + (pdf, doc)
-intitle: (find words in web page title)
-inurl: (find words in URL)
-quoted “” whole phrase/name
-stock quotes (BBBB, WMT, GOOG)
-capitalizing AND/OR (enables these terms)
- using + or –
- numbers & numrange ( debt $% oz. yr 55..95)
- calculator (functions within search box: 2x2=, 328*63=,sqrt 65=
http://www.google.com/help/features.html
b. Google Groups (Usenet, etc.)
2. Google Images (persons, things, historical, symbols, themes; or jpg,gif,bmp)
3. Google Video (commercial or personal, monitored) & YouTube
4 . Google Books (text samples, and search within book text)
5. Google Scholar
a. To strategize Library database searches
that are difficult to conceptualize or locate via library pages
b. Find items not in leased or conventional databases
6. Google Maps
a. Census (gcensus.com) ( http://65.39.85.13/google/) (two of many)
b. zip codes and boundaries
c. Buildings, Businesses, Schools, etc.
d. Driving Directions
e. Satellite/Hybrid overlays
f. Google Maps Mania
7. Google Earth (download it)
-Google Earth Hacks (the many ways of adapting this tool)
-Google Earth Blog
-Google Earth Community
-Juice Analytics (another way to display census data)
-Emotion Map (experimental mapping creates new kinds of “information”)
-Mashups
8. Google Blogs Search (private info source; “problem roommates”)
9. Google Geeks and How-to’s: Google Blog, GoogleGuide, Google Tutor;
PR Weaver, Google Operating System,
10 Google’s Newsletter for Librarians, Google Librarian (it’s a beginning)
11. Google Answers (buy or sell answers to specific questions: registration req)
12. Google Translation ( language translation of text, within limitations)
13. Google Zeitgeist (records popular Google search terms and trends)
14. GMail as Storage (how to use Gmail to store files on a separate drive)
15. Page Creator (first register: create your own web page)
16. Looking Google (everything about the logo & Google appearance)
17 Google API, Google Maps API (download programs that enable you to
create or hack or adapt Google mapping to your own interests)
(API: historically, "Application Programming Interface". An API is any interface that enables one program to use facilities provided by another, whether by calling that program, or by being called by it. At a higher level still, an API is a set of functionality delivered by a programming system, and as such the mix of APIs in a particular system tells you what that system can do.)
18 Google Reader (news, blogs, gathers RSS feeds)
19 Text Messaging (SMS) (send messages to cell phones)
20. Google Base (buy & sell goods, by location, type, etc. like Craigslist)
21. Picasa (download image processor), GMail, Google Toolbar (access Google searches and applications within browser, search desktop, risk privacy)
22. Sketchup (3D drawing)
23 Citing Online Resources: Guide 1; Guide 2 Guide 3; Google says
24. Finding MP3 files: Paste exactly into blank Google searchbox, then substitute for “Nirvana” whoever you’re looking for (3/07):
-inurl:(htmhtmlphp) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wmamp3) "Nirvana"
25. RECOMMENDED READING:
The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business
and Transformed our Culture, by John Battelle. Portfolio, 2005
Google Search & Rescue for Dummies, by Brad Hill. Wiley, 2005
Building Research Tools with Google by Harold Davis. Wiley, 2005 (covers adapting Google search engine and using API’s)
The Missing Manual, by Sarah Milstein et al, O’Reilly Media, 2006
10/06
ADD: Custom Google Coop – make your own Search Engine….
Getting a Google Account
